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REMARKS 



ON 



A REPORT OF A COMMITTEE 

OP THE 

PROPOSING CERTAIN CHANGES, 

RELATING TO THE INSTRUCTION AND DISCIPLINE OF THE COLLEGE^; 

READ MAY 4, 1824, AND TO BE TAKEN INTO 

CONSIDERATION JUNE 1, 1824. 



BY ONE, LATELY A MEMBER 
OF THE IMMEDIATE GOVERNMENT OP THE COLLEGE. 



Ar^C' Mb^-V.V. 



CAMBRroOE : 

PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 

BT HILLIARD AND M£TCALY. 

1824. 






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REMARKS. 



Having received through the post-office a printed copy of 
the Report mentioned in the title-page, I shall make it the 
subject of a few remarks. My connexion with the College, 
though intimate, is such, that its adoption would in no way 
affect me through any merely personal interest or private 
feeling* I am not exposed, therefore, to the imputation of any 
improper motive, and consequently, not under the restraint 
from feelings of delicacy, which may, in the present stage of 
the business, prevent the officers of the Immediate Government 
(I mean the resident officers of instruction and discipline con- 
stituting the body so called) from publicly expressing those 
objections which they must entertain. My motive for writing 
is a deep conviction that some of the leading changes proposed 
in the Report will affect the interests of the College essentially 
and most injuriously. This motive would be sufficient to justify 
any member of the community in taking the same course ; 
and in endeavouring at least to prevent the adoption of these 
changes, till their necessary effects have been fairly and fully 
considered. 

There are various suggestions contained in the Report, 
and probably a very considerable part of it, in which I 
should concur. But I do not undertake to say what might 
be the opinions of other gentlemen, practically acquainted with 
the subject. It seems to have been a fundamental mistake 
throughout the transaction of this business, that the officers of 
the Immediate Government of the College have not been con- 
stantly and freely consulted ; but on the contrary, that the plan 
has been devised without any direct consultation on the part of 
the Committee, with those who are practically acquainted with 
the subject ; who must carry it into execution, if it be ever 



4 

executed ; and whose judgment, therefore, ought to have been 
enlisted, and whose feelings strongly interested in its favor. 
To parts of the plan there appear to be the strongest objec- 
tions ; and to these portions of it, it is to be hoped the attention 
of the Overseers will be particularly directed. 

The first leading feature that may be mentioned, is the giving 
to the President new powers in relation to the other officers, a 
"complete visitatorial authority" over them, and a negative upon 
all their acts and proceedings. The power given to the heads 
of the proposed new departments, into which the College is to 
be divided in reference to different branches of study, is liable 
in its degree to the same objections as the new discretionary 
power given to the President. The change proposed, in so 
greatly increasing the authority and influence of the latter 
officer, appears to proceed from an erroneous view of the causes 
of the present evils in the state of the College, and to be suck 
as will tend essentially to aggravate these evils. 

One of the first things to be done to raise the reputation of 
the College, is to give the officers of the College, as such^ a 
higher standing with the community, to make their offices 
an object of honorable ambition, to treat them with all the 
deference and estimation which is due to the most important 
officers of one of the highest literary institutions of our coun- 
try ; to take eYerj proper means to bring together men of 
the first talents, the most extensive learning, the most correct 
morals, the soundest judgment 5 and when such men are thus 
collected, to make the best use of their powers, by affording 
them every facility in employing those powers for the benefit 
and improvement of the College ; by committing the institution, 
as it were, into their hands ; not by degrading them to the 
rank of mere ministerial officers, and subjecting them to the 
discretionary government of an individual. There need be no 
hesitation in saying, that the mode in which the officers of the 
College have for some time been treated, is, in many respects, the 
reverse of this course of conduct ; and the consequent ill effects 
upon the institution have been sufficiently apparent. The propo- 
sals now made will tend to depress them still further. They are 
to be submitted, as mere ministerial officers, to the authority of 
the Overseers, the Corporation, the President, and the heads of 
departments among themselves. They ought to be responsible 
only to the public through the Overseers ; excepting always 
their responsibility to their own consciences, their own sense 



of honor, their own feeling of reputation, and their own strong 
interest in the prosperity of the institution. The system of 
government proposed is foreign from the whole spirit which 
breathes around us in our repubUcan habits and institutions ; 
and is such as no man of proper feelings would submit to, 
unless the necessities of a family compelled him to make a 
choice between different duties, his duty to himself and his 
duty to those dependent upon him. It is proposed to separate 
the officers of the College from all the other members of the 
community, and to erect a little despotism, of w^hich they are 
to be the subjects. The power given to the President is in its 
nature arbitrary and irresponsible, dependent merely on his 
own judgment and will, such as is not exercised by any other 
individual in the country, and such as I trust in the good 
providence of God, never will be. 

Upon what grounds, I would ask, is it supposed that the 
President will possess such a decided superiority over his col- 
leagues, in good sense and correct notions of discipline, that his 
simple negative ought to annul what three or four of their 
nimiber, or all the heads of the executive boards, may have 
unanimously decided ; and how is it imagined possible to sup« 
port any discipline in the College, if a student, upon the inflic- 
tion of a punishment, may appeal from the decision of his 
immediate governors to another officer, state his case person- 
ally to him, and hope from him a reversal of his sentence ? If 
it be said that the power will never be exercised, it is worse 
than nugatory to grant it. But the first instance in which it is 
exercised, the authority of the officers whose sentence is re- 
versed, will be prostrated. To make an express provision for 
the reversal of punishments in the ordinary routine of College 
government, is to make a provision to destroy the government 
itself. 

" The President," it is proposed, " shall have an indepen- 
dent and responsible negative upon all the acts and proceedings 
of the other Boards and Departments in the University." But 
what can be meant by the epithet as thus used ? To whom 
will the President be responsible for the exercise of his dis- 
cretion ; or how can any public officer be made responsible 
for an exercise of discretion ? Supposing a collision between him 
and any one of the new bodies of government, in which he is 
clearly in the WTong, what man, or what body of men is to 
rejudge the case ? Is it said that the appeal will be to public 



opinion ? One answer is, that by the plan proposed, he is pro- 
vided with every means of influence which can be given him, 
derived from rank, power, and patronage, to prejudice public 
opinion in his favor. 

The provision made in the plan under consideration, to 
secure the faithful performance of the duties of the other offi- 
cers, by the oversight, or as it is called, the " complete visita- 
torial power" of the President, seems to imply that he alone 
can be interested in the prosperity of the institution ; and that 
they are to be regarded as a set of idle day-laborers, who will 
not do their work faithfully without an overseer. Why is it 
presumed that the President will have this peculiar interest in 
the good of the College, not felt by the other officers ? Suppose 
he is deficient in this respect ; who is to be the overseer of 
the President ? Or if that be effectually provided for, who are 
to oversee his overseers ? This system of compulsory good 
behaviour, through the constant action of 'oversight and visita- 
torial powers, and the fear of reprimand or heavier punishment, 
will at last be found to rest on nothing. Somewhere or another, 
in any system for governing the College, the main reliance 
must be upon men's consciences, and honor, and faithfulness ; 
upon their strong sense of public duty ; upon their deep convic- 
tion of the importance of the prosperity of the institution to the 
best interests of the community ; upon their desire of honora- 
ble reputation and just esteem; and, in the last place, upon their 
perception that their own private interests are intimately con- 
nected with those of the College. These are the motives 
through which the resident officers are to be addressed. But 
the present plan directly appeals to none of these motives but 
the last. This it presents in its humblest form; and on this 
it rests as a security for the good behaviour of the officers. 
By bringing this prominently forward, it tends as far as 
possible to counteract the operation of all higher and more 
honorable feelings. 

It ought to be one primary object to make every officer of 
the College feel, that his personal reputation is involved in the 
reputation and prosperity of the institution. But the plan now 
proposed, following up and aggravating the defects of the bad 
system which has existed, brings forward the President alone 
as the representative of the College, to take all the praise if 
the institution flourish, and with such power, and influence, 
and standing in society, as to be able most probably to shelter 



himself from blame, if it do not ; even if its decline be attribut- 
able to himself alone. That no gentlemen, such as ought to 
hold an office in the College, would hereafter accept one, if 
this form of government were adopted, I am fully persuaded ; 
and I do not hesitate to extend the remark to the office of 
President. No man having a just sense of what is due to 
others, would consent to place himself in such a relation to 
those who ought to be his equals. 

There seems, indeed, to be no reason in the nature of a 
literary institution, or in any considerations derived from a 
regard to its best interests, to show that the President of a Col- 
lege should be a different officer from the Dean of a Faculty, 
that he should be any thing more than primus inter pares, pre- 
siding among his colleagues, but taking his part at the same 
time in all their duties, particularly in the duty of instruction. 
That the office of the President of Harvard College is of a 
different character, is perhaps an evil necessarily connected 
with other existing evils in the constitution of the College, and 
which must remain till they are removed. The President of 
a College should act in all important concerns with his col- 
leagues in the government ; and the proper and appropriate 
duties of his office, in such a case, would demand little more 
of his time, than corresponding duties would demand of their 
time. He would preside in meetings at which they would be 
present. To give him other duties, by making him the arbitrary 
governor of the institution, is to create his office into an intol- 
erable evil. To leave him without any other than the proper 
and appropriate duties of his office, is to render it nearly a 
sinecure, an office for parade only. But this is too showy and 
expensive an appendage for a literary institution. I do not 
mean to say, that according to the present constitution of 
Harvard College, the President is not called upon to perform 
important duties in which his colleagues have no share. The 
question is, whether it is desirable that this state of things 
should continue ? But whatever answer may be given to this 
question, it will not affect the force of the preceding considera- 
tions ; and a more proper time may occur for its discussion. 

I shall now remark upon the plan for six different govern- 
ments, if I have counted rightly, to administer the discipline of 
the College. Strict uniformity of discipline is a fundamental 
requisite to the good government of the College, but nothing 
could easily be devised more adapted to prevent the attain- 



8 

ment of this object, than the breaking up of the College 
government into six distinct governments. It is impossible 
that they should exercise the discipline of the College upon 
the same principles and with the same feelings. The officers 
now residing within the College buildings have frequent com- 
munications with each other for mutual advice and assistance, 
and for the purpose of preserving uniformity of discipline. 
This is proper, and is all that is necessary, beside the general 
meetings of the government. 

The plan now proposed, by taking away from individual 
officers the power of inflicting any punishment ; by rendering 
a meeting of three officers necessary to inflict the most tri- 
fling ; and by subjecting their decision to the reversal of 
the President, would tend effectually to destroy the authority 
and respectability of all the other officers in the eyes of the 
students. When to this we add the delay which must often 
take place in the infliction of punishment, keeping up, while 
it continues, a state of irritation among those who are expecting 
it, and among their friends ; the necessary want of uniformity, 
before adverted to, in the manner in which discipline will be 
administered by five or six different bodies, sometimes even 
while acting upon offences of the same character, committed 
at the same time ; the consequent occasion which will take 
place for the President to interpose his power to reverse, or to 
modify and equalize, their sentences; the triumph which will 
follow of a portion of the students over those governors whose 
sentence is reversed or softened, and the disagreement 
which will be produced among the governors themselves ; 
when all these things are considered, I believe the plan now 
proposed will strike every one, who has learned any thing 
from personal experience in administering the discipline of 
the College, as being in eflfect rather a plan for producing 
insubordination and anarchy, than a plan of government. 

Passing over the division of the instructers into depart- 
ments, which seems a measure of very doubtful expediency, 
it may now be asked what sufficient reason there is for in- 
creasing the number and length of the recitations. Three 
recitations in a day, beside the other college exercises, are 
to be attended by every student ; and they are to be longer, 
it is said, and ' more searching than at present.' It is intend- 
ed, therefore, that they shall be in great part mere examina- 
tions, mere modes of determining whether a student has 



d 

properly occupied his time. So far as they are intended to 
answer this end, it may be made a question whether, instead 
of increasing their number and length, they do not already 
occupy too much of the time of the students. In regard to 
those students who are, or who may 6c, acted upon by higher 
motives, to those who do not require, or who require but in a 
small degree, this compulsory process for producing diligence, 
such a supervision over every tw^o or three hours to be spent 
in study, such frequent calls to be examined and to be present 
at a long examination of others, will be not merely irksome ; 
they will be a useless consumption of a large portion of their 
time. As far as these exercises are intended to afford an 
opportunity to the teacher for oral instruction, the frequency 
and length proposed seem wholly unnecessary. 

In the remainder of the report th^re are many proposed 
regulations which may be approved, and some which seem 
objectionable. Among the latter may be particularly 
mentioned, the proposal that every student's room should be 
visited by an officer at nine o'clock in the evening. As a 
large portion of the students are scattered about in rooms in 
different dwellinghouses in the town, at the distance of at least 
half a mile from each other ; the proposal seems hardly prac- 
ticable. If the visitation should be confined to the rooms in 
the college buildings, its principal effect would be to lead those 
inclined to irregularity, to take rooms in the town. But it 
S€ems objectionable on other grounds. Such kind of in- 
spection degrades the officers. It takes from them that in- 
fluence with the students which is of more importance, as re- 
gards the true objects to be aimed at in the discipline of the 
College, than the enforcing of any amount of rules of such a 
character. It is treating the whole body of students as sus- 
pected persons ; and tends to produce irritation and reaction 
on their part, and generally a state of feeling unfavorable 
to the operation of those motives, on which the main reliance 
must be placed as a security for their good conduct. 

Generally speaking, in the plan proposed, the security for 
the good conduct of the students, (much as in the case of the 
officers,) is made to rest principally upon constant supervision 
and coercive discipline, with little reference to higher mo- 
tives, and little attempt to devise means for bringing them 
into operation. In this respect the plan seems to be essen- 
tially defective, and to present only a partial system, which 
operating alone would be found not merely inadequate to the 

2 



10 

end proposed ; but more likely, it is to be feared, to produce 
an opposite result, than that which is intended. 

The plan, now under consideration, taken as a whole, does 
not seem to afford any settled and distinct conception of the 
character which it is proposed to give to the College. Is it 
to be a University? One would think that this should be 
gradually aimed at. Yet such frequent recitations as are 
proposed are not common in any literary institution, which 
approaches that character. The circumstances likewise in 
which all the resident instructers are to be placed, and the 
duties imposed upon them, are such, as must hereafter pre- 
vent their stations from being filled by such men as ought to 
hold the offices of a University, in order to give it any re- 
spectability. Is the college then to be degraded to the rank 
of a high school ? What reason in that case can there be 
for deferring the admission of students till the age of sixteen ? 
How is such a purpose consistent with thre proposal on which 
the report is grounded, that of giving a more thorough edu- 
cation, and leading young men to higher attainments, that of 
approximating the standard of learning in the College some- 
what nearer to the standard of similar institutions in other 
countries ? How is it consistent with the proposal for the ad- 
mission and instruction of students, who may not wish for a 
degree, who must in some measure be dispensed from sub- 
mitting to the strict government proposed over other students, 
and who, in consequence, would soon, it is probable, amount 
to a very considerable proportion of the whole number ? Why, 
if such an institution only be intended, should we hereafter 
wish to increase the means of instruction at Cambridge, since 
those already existing there are far more than sufficient for 
the purposes of a high school ? 

No one, I trust, in consequence of the preceding remarks 
upon what seem to me the defects of the plan under consider- 
ation, will charge me with the foolish vanity of arrogating 
any superiority of judgment to the gentlemen by whom it has 
been reported. I have only one advantage which they do 
not possess. I have been for nearly fifteen years intimately 
connected with the college ; and led, as every one so circum- 
stanced must be, to think and observe much upon the causes 
which may affiect its prosperity or its decline. It is not 
strange, therefore, if I should perceive the bearing and neces- 
sary effiicts of some proposals, though their consequences 
may escape the observation of wiser men, without the same 



11 

experience, and whose thoughts have not been long rlirected 
to the subject. For the talents and integrity of some of the 
gentlemen who compose the Committee, gentlemen whom 1 
may call my friends, I have in common with the rest of the 
community, the highest respect. With others of the Com- 
mittee, 1 have not the honour of any personal acquaintance ; 
but I have no doubt that they have acted according to their 
best judgment upon the information, which they possessed, 
and so far as they were able to give their time to the subject. 

But if the plan brought forward be really so defective and 
objectionable, what other, it may be asked, is to be proposed 
in its stead. If my views coincided with those expressed in 
the commencement of the report respecting the present state 
of the College, I should without hesitation answer, Mone. If 
the College be in so prosperous a state as is there described, 
it would seem to be a most hazardous and rash experiment 
to make any important changes. It would be like giving power- 
ful medicine to a man in health. The old rule, not however 
exactly applicable to the present subject, is experimentum in 
corpore vilu But my views of the condition of the College, I 
confess, are different, and such as lead to the conclusion, 
that important changes are necessary to secure its pros- 
perity and usefulness. The present, however, seems not a 
proper occasion to enter into any details, or to offer any par- 
ticular proposals, and I shall, therefore, conclude with only a 
few general remarks upon the subject. 

If important changes are to be introduced, they should 
rest on a broad and deep foundation ; they should be made 
with clear and comprehensive views of what are, or what 
ought to be, the general purpose and character of the institution ; 
they should be parts of one great system, well understood 
beforehand ; these parts should be properly adjusted to each 
other ; and the plan introduced should contain in itself prin- 
ciples which will give it perpetuity, and afibrd at the same time 
the means of constant improvement and growth. In devising 
such a plan, a great variety of important considerations must 
be attended to ; and many things followed out into their 
practical details and bearings. Partial measures, which un- 
der certain circumstances might be beneficial, may be merely 
injurious, if not accommodated to the existing state of things, 
or to the general system proposed. No error is more likely 
to be prejudicial than a rash adoption of modes of education 
which have been found to succeed elsewhere, without regard 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



029 892 565 5 



to the peculiar circumstances of the institution in which they 
are <(opied. No reasoning will probably be more decep 
tive and mischievous, than reasoning from imperfect analogies, 
in which essential circumstances affecting the character 
of different institutions, or in which the habits, manners, 
state of society, and literary wants of different countries are 
not sufficiently considered. The adoption of important changes 
in the College, without the general views before spoken of, 
will fiend only to throw the whole system into confusion, and 
to increase the evils which now exist. The College is a 
great public concern, through which the literature, morals, 
reputation, and happiness of our whole nation may be affect- 
ed. Very much, it is believed, may be done to raise its 
character, and improve its present condition. But it is not 
to be approached rashly, or made the subject of uncertain 
experiments. Whatever is now done should be done with 
wide views, on a comprehensive pla,n. To this end, much 
examination, much thought, much deliberation, and much 
discussion are necessary. Those practically acquainted 
with its concerns, and having the strongest private interest in 
its prosperity, seem obviously pointed out, by these circum- 
stances, as among the first to be consulted ; but assistance should 
at the same time be derived from many others, whose knowl- 
edge and judgment qualify them to afford it. The plan final- 
ly settled should be supported by the approbation of those 
who are to execute it, and of the well informed throughout 
the community. If less than what has been proposed be 
done, if an imperfect plan be adopted, unsupported by the 
judgment of the resident officers, or of the community at 
large, the consequence, we may well fear, will be the deep^ 
perhaps irremediable, injury of the College. 



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